For many years used tires have been literally thrown away. It is now estimated that as many as 150 to 200 million tires are scrapped in the United States each year. A small percentage of these tires have been recycled or reclaimed through retreading processes for further use. However, the vast majority of these tires have not been recycled because of the cost, power, labor, capitol and maintenance required to handle them. The conventional methods of recycling include chemical devulcanization and mechanical grinding. The introduction of steel belted tires to the industry has virtually eliminated the chemical devulcanization and mechanical grinding as a practical means of recycling tires.
A number of freezing processes have been developed to reclaim the wire and rubber from the tires. These systems involve the cyrogenic freezing of the tire to a point of enbrittlement, crushing, separating the magnetic components from the non-magnetic components in the crushed tire and then sizing the rubber that remains. One such process is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,025,990 issued on May 31, 1977 and entitled Process for Reclaiming Rubber, Metal and Fabric from Whole Tires.